I am not to new to growing, have been for over forty years. I don’t proclaim to know everything there is to know as technology advances seem to play a small role in the growth process, however the one thing that remains a constant is seeds and germination. For years I never had issues with seeds because everything came with some seeds in it. Pop one in a flower pot and two weeks later you have a plant. Lately I have been paying a lot of money for seeds that are supposed to be high quality but they seem to have a high failure rate. Right now I am sitting at 18 seeds to obtain one plant. I go to much greater lengths to germinate seeds and grow than we did in the 60’s but getting a seed to germinate and a seedling to grow seems very difficult with the seeds I am getting. The staff here continues to send me new seed as they guarantee, but what good is the guarantee if nothing ever grows, and trying to get enough plants to grow to be worth running expensive lights just is not working out. At this rate I will never be able to grow multiple plants at once because so far in the last two months I have only gotten one to grow out of the eighteen seeds and two different stains, white widow and super silver. That one plant is now so far along that any new plants will be a problem to grow with out one interfering with the others, i.e. one in flowering stage and others in growth stage. These high priced seeds may not be worth the investment and the time it takes to continually keep waiting for new seeds and waiting to see if they germinate and sprout. I wish I had better things to say but, unfortunately so far my experience is not a good one. quite discouraging in fact.
When everything else is going right but your seeds are still not germinating, often the problem is the media you are germinating the seeds in is not warm enough. If you are already using a seed germinating heating mat be sure it is not getting too hot and kinda cooking you seeds.
Also seedlings should almost always be started under not very intense light, one cheap regular 45watt CFL with a full spectrum 5500k-6500k rating would be plenty to start quite a few seeds in a small or home made humidity dome germination/clone rooting box. Then after the plants have grown a little under the 45w CFL without the humidity dome anymore – transition the young plants to more intense light slowly. These are all things to keep in mind. I understand with your experience you may have already thought of these things. I’m sorry that you have had to go through the trouble and inconvenience of getting replacement seeds. Hopefully these suggestions may help. I’m sure we can get you germinating your seeds successfully in no time. Another consideration as well, sometimes the transit through the mail may expose your seeds to extreme conditions that may have killed many of them. It may be best to have your seeds shipped during a time that the weather is most favorable. I know , especially if you are receiving your seeds in their package in good condition, this may not be not very likely but is the only other variable I could think of that might be contributing to the difficulties you’ve been having. Hopefully you’ll have better luck in the near future and I’m sure the staff at ILGM will do everything they can to keep you satisfied.
With my first t set of seeds I had a bit of trouble, but in reviewing what happened the problem was definitely on my end. After nursing 6 of 30 seeds to maturity I addressed my problems, ordered 40 more seeds and began again.
I planted 20 seeds in a store bought seedling mix, and germinated 20 plants. 12 of those are blooming and 8 are still being groomed for bloom.
I’m only chiming in because I do believe that the seeds from ILGM are quality seeds.
I thhink we can all agree on that. 